In the past, computing applications such as computer games and multimedia applications used controllers, remotes, keyboards, mice, or the like to allow users to manipulate game characters or other aspects of an application. More recently, computer games and multimedia applications have begun employing cameras and software gesture recognition engines to provide a human computer interface (“HCI”). With HCI, user gestures are detected, interpreted and used to control game characters or other aspects of an application.
In HCI systems, hand gestures are often used to control interaction with a gaming or other application. Existing gesture recognition systems generally focus either on position-based pointing gestures or motion-based symbolic gestures. With pointing gestures, a user directs a cursor on the screen which follows the user's hand. Such gesture recognition systems have a variety of drawbacks, including jitter and latency (or lag time) between the hand movements and cursor position, and limited user interface (UI) density. With motion-based symbolic gestures, a user's movements are interpreted and, if matching a predefined gesture, some associated action is taken. Motion-based systems have certain drawbacks, including false positives, gesture collisions and the inability to provide immediate affordances and feedback (a particular gesture must first be recognized).